To slightly redo the old saying: "…water, water everywhere, but is any of it good to drink?"

Most of us don't consume enough water under normal conditions, let alone when we are on the golf course. And yet water consumption is vitally important to maintaining our suppleness which is critical to hitting those long drives, and lofting those irons high in the air to land softly on the greens.

Our discs and joints are 75% water, so if they are dehydrated it is no wonder we have aches and pains. And those aches and pains turn into stiffness and before you know it there goes that big shoulder turn and those fluid hips, and in my case, that means the two dollar Nassau.

Now just as important as it is to get water is getting the right kind of water. A recent segment on the "Today Show" concluded that bottled water is generally no better or worse than tap water. (Although at $4.00 a gallon that is debatable since it's more expensive than gasoline.) But the point is made. What is sold on the course at $2.00 to $3.00 a bottle just might not be any better than drinking from the trough.

The best bet is filtered water, but not water that is filtered through your body - A good quality filter that insures the removal of what we might refer to as the bad stuff. (1993, Milwaukee, WI…an outbreak of water borne disease. 100 died…400,000 sick…a community that considered their tap water good.)

When you head back out onto the golf course this spring and/or summer, think about hydration and consider those discs and joints if you want to continue hitting those booming drives. Golf is more than just getting that little ball into the hole. It's staying fit and healthy so we can do it again, and again, and again, and again. FORE!!!

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An Ounce of Prevention

Keeping the Mind and Body Sound for the Entire 18 holes

Most all of us have heard the phrase "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But how does that apply to golf?

The first thing we tell someone who wants to take up the 'grand old game' is to get lessons from a teaching professional - "Learn the basics because everything else is built around them." Often people that try to learn on their own end up developing bad habits that are very difficult to break, which later costs them more in the long run either in lessons to correct the problem or those two dollar bets that turn to six that turn to twelve with the automatic doubles.

Of course they can always give up the game? ...NOT!!!

That isn't an option for most of us - it's our addiction. So I guess we better not only get proper instruction but we better also take heed regarding our health condition.

Nutritious food, proper sleep, weight management and proper hydration are the critical elements to performing at one's best. Unfortunately, we don't think about those things until something happens and then we kick into "intervention mode" - reacting to the illness. And although many times drugs may tend to stop the symptoms, they do little to address the cause.

The smart answer is the preventative approach - address the issue before it becomes a problem, which leads to never missing that tee time (As long as the honey-do's have been addressed and completed, of course). Let's look at some simple things that can be done to ward off those unacceptable "golf interruptions":

Conventional wisdom says 8 glasses of water a day. But research shows that a better formula is to take your weight, divide it in half and then drink that many ounces of water each day and that is for normal activity (200 lbs divided by 2 = 100 ounces). So walking 5 miles over some 4 hours on a golf course is going to demand more (hills additional).

Water cannot be over emphasised when playing golf. You are outdoors, you are walking, and depending upon the heat, you are most likely sweating. Now some people think that sodas and beer and coffee can subsitute because it is all liquid. But that is not the case. When they say 8 glasses or 1/2 your body weight in ounces they are talking about water - period. And it is the water that keeps your joints and muscles from stiffening up and causing pain.

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